Many articles about diabetes appear daily, many of them very interesting. The intent here is to make some of these available for others who may not see them or have bypassed them. I will try to comment briefly on those I have grouped or on an individual article. This is not guaranteed to be a daily post, but I hope that this will give you ideas for your own research or blog posts. Please talk to your doctor about medical problems.

14 August 2013

Salsalate for Diabetes?

Part 3 of 3 parts

This is in three parts because there are too good points and some
information that is not being given out in the high praise for
diabetes and this will be necessary for your doctor to determine
before you could be given salsalate, if the FDA approves it for
diabetes. It is currently being used to treat cancer, osteoarthritis
and rheumatoid arthritis, which gives us a plethora of information.

In October 2010, I wrote a blog about salsalate in which I did
find a lot to be concerned about and why it may not be right for
diabetes. Again, the same researcher at Joslin Diabetes Center, Dr.
Allison Goldfine, has another article out on research she has been
doing on salsalate. In the first study for 14 weeks, she could only
get a 13 percent improvement in blood glucose readings for people
with type 2 diabetes. C-reactive protein concentrations (a marker of
inflammation) showed improvement of 34 percent. In Stage 2, she is
saying salsalate has a 37 percent improvement in blood glucose
results in 48 weeks.

Salsalate is an inexpensive means of treating and/or reducing the
risk for diabetes in obese young adults by reducing glycemia and
lowering inflammation. This is one of the largest benefits. It will
be interesting if it can pass the heart disease progression tests
which FDA will want proof of before granting its use for diabetes.
The highest dosage given in the both stages is 4 grams per day of
salsalate.

Stage 1 of TINSAL-T2D (Targeting Inflammation Using Salsalate in
Type 2 Diabetes) evaluated varying doses of salsalate in 108
participants with type 2 diabetes for 14 weeks. This study was
reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2010. The
current findings are based on Stage 2 of TINSAL-T2D, which evaluated
286 participants with type 2 diabetes for 48 weeks. The subjects'
blood glucose was inadequately controlled on current diabetes
medications. Participants were randomized into salsalate and placebo
groups. All patients were continued on the medications they entered
the study taking. Participants in both trials using insulin,
thiazolidinediones, glucagon-like peptide-1 agonists, NSAIDs,
warfarin, or uricosuric agents were not eligible for the study.
Reading the warnings shows that these would have severe adverse
effects on the study participants.

What is surprising is that patients up to age 75 were included in
both Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the study. This will be valuable
information for clinicians when the trials are completed and if FDA
gives an approval. Maybe, just maybe, some researchers are seeing
the need to include the elderly.

Dr. Goldfine is currently leading a heart disease study named
TINSAL-CVD to evaluate how salsalate impacts coronary artery plaque
volume in patients with established coronary artery disease. The
trial results should be available in two years and then we may know
if salsalate is a safe drug for use as a diabetes medication. It
will be interesting if it can pass the heart disease progression
tests which FDA will want proof of before granting its use for
diabetes.

Dr. Goldfine was kind enough to send me copies of both studies
which is helpful in understanding the more than the Medical News
Today was saying that the studies may provide additional evidence
that salsalate may be an effective drug to treat type 2 diabetes.
One aspect of this is that very few other diabetes medications will
match up for stacking medications.

I am looking forward to the end of the latest trial and just how
it will fare, which other oral medications it will be allowed to be
used with, and if doctors will be issued enough information to
prevent problems.

About Me

I am enjoying life, despite diabetes type 2. I am retired and enjoying the time I have for writing and photography. I was diagnosed with type 2 on Oct 2003, on oral meds for 4 months and they were doing nothing to really improve my daily readings. By cutting my carbohydrates I received the most improvement, but still not enough. Then I requested insulin, even though I did not like the thought of needles. That brought about the biggest change and A1c's in the lower 6's and upper 5's. Now I am working at maintaining them under 6.0 and hopefully nearer 5.5.